West Point Bible owned by Cadet Emily J.T. Perez

Source catalog description

This description refers to material held by Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Visual details below describe the original material.

Emily Jazmin Tatum Perez was born on February 19, 1983, in Heidelberg, Germany, to a military family and was raised in a religious home. She graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point on May 28, 2005 and earned her commission as a second lieutenant in the Army Medical Services Corps. She was assigned as the Treatment Platoon Leader in Charlie Company, 204th Support Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, which deployed to Iraq in December 2005 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. She took this West Point Bible with her to Iraq. Nine months later, on September 12, 2006, Perez was killed in action when the convoy she was leading was hit by an IED. She was the first African American female officer to be killed in combat and the first member of her graduating West Point class to die in Iraq. Lieutenant Perez was posthumously awarded several medals for her military service, including the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star, and was buried at West Point Cemetery. A West Point Bible owed by 2nd Lt. Emily Jazmin Tatum Perez. The Bible has a blue leather cover and etched gold lettering with the West Point coat of arms and Perez’s name.

Catalog date

ca. 2004

Recorded places

West Point, Orange County, New York, United States, North and Central America; Iraq, Asia

Recorded subjects

African American; Faith; Iraq War, 2003-2011; Military

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